Thursday, April 30, 2009

DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) has now come up with a unique way to develop LANdroid WiFi robots, which are intelligent crawling radio-relay robots with size equal to that of a deck of cards. LANdroids are there on the DARPA’s technology wish-list. DARPA is requesting for intelligent self-directed radio relay nodes that could set up mesh networks in urban settings.

Conceptually pictured above, the LANdroid WiFi robots will boast a radio, robotic platform, battery, and small processor. Warfighters will carry a many of them and would be able to drop them anywhere on the move. Collectively, these units would create a self-healing mesh network. In case, a unit is sighted by the enemy and grabbed, the network will course around the lost transmitter. The LANdroids are expected to be about the size of our palm.